Wicked Games
by BeastlyRedemption
Summary: Bella escaped, and now she's on the run. People want her dead, and they just might get to her. When she runs away from her problems, she finds herself mixed into more issues. Like a cute, bed-headed Pixie, that she's not supposed to have feelings for, but does anyway. If life is supposed to be great, then why is it so hard?


**A.N. Hello, guys! So, some of you know about this story from my other story 'Thorns and Roses', and if you guys are here from that story, then thank you! Anyway, I tried to make this Bella clear with her abilities, but I also tried to be very vague about it. Just think of her as Marvel's Wolverine and Archangel mixed together, except her wings can fold back into her skin. Bella is also a highly trained spy and an assassin, but she kind of just escaped from a laboratory in Phoenix. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, SM does. If I did, I'd make Bella a homicide detective! Actually . . . that's not a bad idea.**

* * *

The hum of the jet's engines filled the bottom of the plane with a nice, warm, blare. I leaned back against the hull of the plane, but my eyes were closed, and I wasn't asleep. I just can't take one more look at the metallic white, metal walls again. I really should have brought an entertainment device; my iPod, a DVD Player maybe, and I would have if I wasn't in such a hurry – it wasn't like I had all the time in the world whilst running away from people who wanted you dead.

Underneath the plane was warm enough; just a little uncomfortable. My back ached; not from back pains, but because where I was situated pressed into the spots where my wings came out.

The plane shook suddenly. I flinched, my vision going hazy for a second before sharpening, my canine teeth grew to my lip and my metal claws started to grow out between my knuckles. _I hate planes_. Turning around, I pressed my hands to the metal hull that was behind me, watching as the indelebilitium claws shrank back into my forearm, between my radius and ulna. I listened as my breath steadied and watched as the cuts the claws had made sealed over. I sat back down, and let the thrum of the people above the floors calm me. It wasn't a good idea that I lose control, especially on this tight, cramped airline.

I could hear and smell everything. If I wanted, I could switch my X-ray vision on to see through the floors. One young man above, was stone dead drunk. Another lady was watching the Labyrinth; the one with David Bowie.

I could be one of those people, I could be up there with the first-class or the commercial. It wasn't that money was a problem – it was easy to steal, it was even easier to earn and save up. In fact, I had a lot of money left over from my mother's Will and my espionage services. So I could be up there, enjoying the drinks and the terrible food, breathing in the recycled air. If I worked out the variables; like maybe change my facial structure with plastic surgery – not that I wanted to – and avoid the cameras, I could get on the plane normally. But, again, the variables. Two examples; one, my Father, who I was going to live with now, and two, airport security. They would recognize me from a mile away.

_Besides, this way is cheaper, free, even. _

"Dance magic, dance." I sang along slightly to Jareth and his goblins. I really did miss that movie; it was such a pity that they didn't make a sequel.

I closed my eyes and leaned back against the hard metal once more. A sudden tiredness took over; I'll need to feed soon. I grimaced, I hated that.

The plane shifted to the right and then to the left. I sighed with a chilled, relieved, breath as the gates to the landing gear opened. A rush of cold air blasted around the cargo, but I didn't care. I would get to see the ground, the concreted safe floor that never rocked side to side, and was relatively stable.

The plane jolted as we landed. Or, if you could even call it that, maybe crashing would be more suited. The cargo doors almost opened immediately; but I waited and listened for the human workers. There were three of them, they were male too, if the clunky footsteps and deep, gruff voices were anything to go by. I pushed the wings out from my back and waited until they walked around to the opposite side of the plane.

Soon enough, I heard the voices cross the metal skeleton of this small beast. I tensed my leg muscles and coiled my wings and shot out into the air. I've always loved flying, the feel of the cool, crisp air in your hair was unlike anything else.

I flew over the side of the building, praying that no one would see me, and leapt on the supporting pole on the other side. I focused on my hearing, straining to hear phantom voices screaming that they had seen a winged girl flying through the air. Or maybe they would start a chorus of questions – some would pertain to: is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's Project X; created to kill us all! Isn't she dreamy?

I jumped down after I failed to hear any voices crying about how the world was ending, and took a relieved breath that this airport in Port Angeles was nearly deserted at this time in the day.

Walking outside of the airport was oddly freeing, something about the wet air of Washington made it exhilarating. Towards the end of the parking lot was a payphone; but that's too risky; cameras and eavesdroppers are a big threat now. I fingered the thousand dollars of cash in my black hoodie; I'll have to buy a phone so that I could call Charlie – not until later, though, he was probably at work and I needed to feed. I knew I wouldn't ever hurt Charlie on purpose, but the feeding made me calmer, more stable; I couldn't lose control against somebody I care about.

I walked out of the airport gates and down the highway to an exit. I ducked under a tunnel bridge and fell back into a leisured gait.

Luckily, night had fallen in Port Angeles about an hour ago, nobody would see me if I kept to the shadows; and if I kept my hood up I wouldn't appear dangerous – my pronounced canine teeth usually elicited the feeling of fear and the thoughts: _Oh, God. Oh, God. The she-thing had fangs, it will eat my face. My last words will be 'Oh, God. Oh, God. The she-thing has fangs, it'll eat my face, and it's chasing after me. Help. Help.' _Original, huh? They would freak when they learned that my 'fangs' actually grew longer. They wouldn't _learn _of course, but it didn't subtract the attractiveness of thinking that I could make somebody shit bricks with just a smile and a little gum push.

Two blocks and a half away from where I was walking, was a tall male, who looked to be in his later forties. I walked towards him and his head snapped up to meet my faux surprised gaze. I made eye contact with him, making sure that he noticed me, before ducking in the alley to my left.

I threw myself behind the dumpster overflowing with rotten garbage, and waited for what I knew would be him coming around the corner.

He did, only seconds after I came into the alley. I peeked out from my position; he was looking around wildly, so I kicked a tomato soup can, alerting my presence. I backed further into the darkness as he came around the dumpster.

"Hello?" He called out, right before I slammed him with inhuman strength up against the moss covered wall. Feeding was a brutal process, the before part was sickening, the actual feeding part was absolutely, erotically, delicious, and the after was painful and guilty. Bittersweet, I suppose.

I pressed my body up against his disgusting one, keeping him in place. From my left hand I drew three claws out from my knuckles and jammed them into his stomach, feeling how the warm, thick blood ran all over my hand and down my arm. He screamed and bucked, even though nobody could hear him and even if they did nobody would come to look – it's just how people are. I dragged upwards, leaving a significant, gaping hole in his stomach. He screamed again, but this time it's a gurgling scream.

The blood was making me hazy; the desire pouring through my veins and thumping in my heart. Usually I never need such provocations; the monster that lives in side of me comes out before I even attack. But, I've gone so long without feeding and my monster is asleep. The blood awakens her; like catnip to a kitty.

The man was dying – I saw it in how his gaze dropped, his screaming ultimately stopped to a breath. Good. With an animalistic growl the thing took over, my fangs grew to my bottom lip and I sank them into his neck.

I wasn't drinking his blood – although, I certainly swallowed some. I was drinking his life. From the moment he was born, to the moment he first walked, to the moment he first talked, to the moment he first figured out girls were cute and didn't have cooties after all, the moment he had his first crush on a girl named Samantha Grace. I drank when he first had his wet dream, to when his friends stole some Playboy magazines, to the moment he first masturbated, to the moment he had his first kiss, and to the moment he had his first time. Kyle Abbott was a thief, he sold all of his things for drugs and alcohol. He was planning on mugging me, I'm not sure what he thought I had, and he couldn't have known that I had a thousand dollars' worth of cash on me.

I dropped his dead body with a grunt. He wasn't that exciting, the ones who live a full, adventurous life, tasted better. I wiped the blood from my mouth and walked away from the alley.

I had been walking into town before the incident with Kyle happened. It was only about a mile; so why not fly there?

I coiled my muscles and shot off into the clouds, making sure that nobody would see me. It was cold up here, the wind crystalized against my eyelashes and my breath came out in a fog of short breath. But it was electric, the way the air had forced my hair back, caressing my scalp and ripping at my thoughts. My breath faulted, feeling how the wind ripped at my clothing and how the crisp air stung as it made its way into my nose. I _loved_ this. I loved this more than air. I loved this more than my life. I _needed_ this.

Soon enough the dark damp made into lights of the city. I aim for a rooftop before I descend.

I landed on RadioShack, typical, not Walmart or a Target? Did they even have a Target here?

I ran my eyes over the building rafts only to find that nobody was even in the parking lot. Okay, then.

The man behind the counter proved – again and again – to be successfully irritating. I told him that I needed a phone, like Straight Talk or something. Nope, wasn't going to fly with him, at first, when I walked into the store, he asked me if I needed him to call my parents. Then, after I explained my dilemma, he smirked, almost, like maybe he was amused. He grabbed some flyers out from underneath the top of the counter and spread them out in front of me, he then went on in an almost patronizing sort of voice; it was then that I figured out he was humoring me. He finally got it – only after I crossed my arms and leaned them on the table and lowered my voice saying that if he doesn't get me a phone in the next five seconds, I'll shove my shoe so far up his ass he'll be tasting shoelaces for the whole year, and then after that, I'll dress him up as lettuce and feed him to a snail. I assured him that it would be a very slow death.

He gulped audibly – I cringed – and ran away, stumbling over some packaging in the process. Cool. I grinned and physically high-fived myself. I do what I want to.

He returned with the latest model of the new-fangled smart phone, that, according to him, everybody has been talking about.

I nodded and hummed at the right times, even though my foot was tapping impatiently against fake, dirty, linoleum flooring. I think he sensed my disinterest and mumbled some figures for money. I grabbed a handful from my pocket and shoved it at him. After I grabbed the box and my own contact information I set off down and out of the wretched place.

Grumbling, I shook the completely too tight box open, almost dropping it, mind you, and thumbed open the lock screen by a flickering phrase '_slide to open.' _It made me go through all of the default settings, but finally, finally, I got to the 'home screen' whatever the fuck that means. It had these little, colorful applications. One of the bubbly looking ones claimed that it was a photo application. Okay, that's goodly, I like taking pictures. But, I really needed to call my father.

Alright, nothing to worry about, they are smart phones, they're supposed to make your life easier, right?

Wrong!

_Okay. For. The. Last. Fucking. Time. You dick wad, cock sucking, mother- fucking-son-of-a-mother-fucking-bitch. _I thought earnestly, holding the phone up with two hands and baring my teeth at it; like I was going to bite two fanged sized holes into it. _I just need to call my father. _I stared harder, popping my eyes wide open and mentally switched the voice inside of my head with the old time spooky ghost voice. _Reveal all of your dark secrets to me. _I stopped when I found my left arm extended in front of the phone, fingers wiggling like I was cursing it with magic. _Okay, Bella. Focus, think logically, and for sanity's sake, stop talking to yourself. And yelling at the phone, it's an inanimate object. _

_You're an inanimate fucking object!_ I growled at myself. However, I looked my phone over again, there was a green app with a white curved thing in it, and it claimed to be a phone. Getting excited, I clicked on it – absolutely not expecting it to be what I was looking for; but it was! The dial pad popped up.

I blinked. Once. Twice. Then I howled with rage. I've been standing here for thirty minutes, and all I had to do was look at the bottom bar and actually _read_? _Fuck the world!_

In my angered haste, I spin around in a round-house kick and slammed my foot against the brick wall. Bricks fell out in a ten-foot radius. _Dammit!_ _Okay, okay, Bella, control yourself. Deep breaths. In, out, in, out. Good. _I sighed and rubbed my eyes, I still haven't called Charlie. So I blinked again and thumbed his phone number into the dial.

"Chief Swan, here." Dad's soft voice fell over the speakers. I sighed, I had missed Charlie, a lot, more than I expected.

"Hey, Daddy-o." I responded, dropping my voice down to a mock gangster gruff. "How's it shaking, bacon?"

"Bella boo?" Dad asked, though I could tell he was trying to get me back for that 'Daddy-o' comment. _Who else?_

"Yeah, hey, listen. So, I'm in Port Angeles—"

"Port Angeles?"

"Yeah, Dad, so anyways—"

He cut me off again, "Port Angeles?"

"Yeah, keep up. So anyways, as I was saying—"

"Wait. Wait. Wait, what? You're in Port Angeles?"

"Dad, it is unbelievably rude to interrupt." I scolded him.

"Bella, what the flying fuckerydoo are you doing in Port Angeles?"

I snickered. "The mouth on you, I swear."

"No, Bella. You and I are very aware that you cuss like a distraught sailor, too." He grumpily informed me. "You weren't supposed to come in until next week."

Well, then! "I certainly guess I could catch another flight back to Phoenix, Dad."

"NO! No, Bells, I am so happy you're here." He confirmed in an almost vehement, panicky voice. I grinned, but it dropped quickly.

"I'm sorry, Dad. It's just, you know, everything with the funeral and everything." Tears stung at my eyes, and I shook them away. My Mother, Renée had died last month. It was stupid that I was crying, I really didn't deserve to.

"Yeah, I know Bells." His voice was quiet, too. He missed her. A lot. More than I ever could.

"So anyways, did you want me to get a hotel here? Or…"

"No, I actually was just at a meeting here. I'll pick you up in ten minutes okay? Wait – where are you again?" He asked, embarrassed.

"Uh…" Where _was_ I? "Walmart." I decided, even though I was just at a RadioShack. I needed clothes, okay?

"Oh! Cool! Okay, Wait. Are you that weird, sketchy, looking girl on the sidewalk?" He asked worriedly. Oh hell no.

"You did not just use the words 'weird' and 'sketchy' to describe me, your daughter." I told him icily. He just laughed and hung up as I saw a car crawl up beside me. Charlie – in all of his debonair glory – stuck his head out of the window.

"Hey, kiddo." He smiled at me, I could see the happiness in his eyes. He missed me.

"Hey, Old Man." I joked back and walked around to the front of the car.

Charlie lived in Forks, Washington. A small, rainy town where the smallest talk would announce the biggest headline in all of history. Seriously, people would talk about it for weeks and weeks. It seriously pissed me off to no end. I think that's why Renée got away; it wasn't because she didn't love Charlie – she did, almost as much as he loved her – but she got depressed, so, so depressed.

I remember it clearly, too. Almost like how her blood looked on the glass. Red wasn't supposed to be clear. It was though, on the clean glass that she had only just swiped down in a failed hope to bring more sunlight into the house.

It was almost poetic, sort of. Like how the darkness taints purity with its wickedness. It was like that with Renée. Her blood was the darkness, the sickness. And the glass was the purity, untainted and unblemished. She ruined something pure.

I had just got home from school, enthralled to show my parents my perfect straight A's – it was easy to get those, now that I think of it. I had only been in first grade. Dad wasn't home yet, and I boasted about him in school, about how he was the cool Dad by day, and the dark, Batman Police Chief by night. (I was a little obsessed with Batman back then – I may or may not be now. The Batman hoodie I'm wearing doesn't count!) Mom was home though, she was a writer. A popular one, too, made tons of money and stuff. I rushed to the kitchen, screaming something like 'Mom! Momaroo! Madre! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mother!' I was an odd child, so it was okay to call your Mom 'Mamaroo'.

I turned the corner and saw her laying down by the glass door she was going to put in that day. I had giggled to myself. Silly Mother! Always finding the funniest places to nap in. How wrong I was. How unbelievably wrong.

I walked closer and noticed a dark liquid dripping from underneath her. I frowned, we had an agreement, she couldn't drink my fruit punch, and I couldn't drink her 'adult fruit punch'. But there wasn't any cup around her. I watched the red for a minute, studying how it snaked across the clear planes, dripping and ebbing, coaxing and seducing around the glass. The pureness. It was starting to look less and less like fruit punch and more and more like the stuff that came out of the dead bodies on my favorite TV show 'CSI'.

I swallowed thickly, the warning bells going off screaming to help Mommy, went off in my seven year old brain.

"Mom? Mom, are you okay?" My voiced asked, trying to keep steady, trying to fight against the violent, ever growing, thumping in my chest, against my ribcage. I laid a hand on her shoulder facing me, and applied pressure. She rolled over easily enough. It was then that I noticed the gaping gash on her right wrist. It looked like it was crying with the blood as tears.

I flicked my eyes over to her face, wanting her easy smile to appear. Instead, I got her closed eyes and the blood from her wrist wound smeared on her face.

I screamed and backed away, I really wasn't thinking anymore, my brain was on autopilot. I called the only number I knew, it was Dad's number. Daddy could fix this, I knew he could.

Everything after that was a blur. Paramedics arrived and explained to me that I wouldn't get to see my Mother for a while. I kicked and screamed, trying to get on the vehicle that was red like a fire truck but wasn't exactly one. I bit and hollered, until Dad came over.

"You got a tough little one here, Charlie," said the mean man in navy scrubs with a stethoscope around his neck. He hissed as I bit his hand again. "She's a real spitfire!"

"Don't I know it?" Dad mumbled and grabbed me over his shoulders. He explained to me what Mommy tried to do to herself, treating me like an adult, which I liked very much. But what I didn't like was the word 'suicide' it sound to clinical. And I told him that. Dad nodded, tears running down his cheeks, and said "Yeah, I know." And he did know, he did really. He understood everything. He understood when Mommy finally woke up and cried and pleaded with him to understand. But he already did, so he just kissed her forehead and whispered "Of course, Darling. I love you."

I had a harder time understanding. I still don't to this day. I still don't understand. But I believed then, I believed her when she pinky promised me that she would never, never, ever, do it again.

Ten years later she broke that promise.

A month ago she succeeded.

"Hey, Bells?" Charlie asked, hesitantly, gently breaking me out of my horrid flashback.

"Yeah, Dad?" My voice was quiet, just the same as his.

"I'm really happy you're here," Charlie whispered back.

"Me too. I missed you a lot," I looked out the window, effectively breaking our whisper contest.

We pulled up to the house silently, I hoped out into the rain to grab my duffel bag of newly bought Walmart clothes. I declined Charlie's offer of help, even if he pouted. He nodded anyway, understanding that I needed space to get settled. He always understands.

My room was the same as I had left it; a time capsule. The queen sized bed with golden comforter and black frame. The swirling walls with ancient scripts and heartbreaking lullaby's. There were folding posters of David Bowie with his fantastic hair in the Labyrinth.

On the corner on the desk – where my laptop will go soon – is an old phonograph, but really it's an iHome for my iPod, it just looks like a phonograph. I haven't had any time to upload my songs to my new iPod, I'll save that for tomorrow.

I should be getting sleep. I really, really, should. I have school tomorrow and it's almost midnight here. I found that I couldn't though, it was the rain. It was the whooshing of the damned wind. It was the phantom screams ripping through the air, sobs pleading to be saved. Bloody gurgles of pain and death. It was the blood that ran down my Mother's arm out of her gashed wrist, tainting it again with its darkness; like it's done before with the glass.

So, I didn't sleep. Not one bit. Instead I read long forgotten poems that scabbed my walls. Mom and I had written them together with a large calligraphy pen. I told her that I liked the font, and how you had to twist your wrist a certain way to get it elegant. She agreed with her solemn smile and chased after me into my room.

Things dotted my walls with a particular passion things like:

_Vincit Omnia Veritas – Truth conquers all._

_ "__When we hold each other in darkness, it doesn't make the darkness go away. The bad things are still out there. The nightmares are still waking. When we hold each other we feel not safe, but better… for a moment or two the darkness doesn't seem so bad."—Neil Gaiman. _Mom wrote that one on my wall, she said it was her favorite sayings of them all. I didn't understand then, I do know. She was trying to feel safe, better. Not ill or wrecked. She wanted to believe in this phrase, like she wanted to believe in the lie that she was going to be okay, that she was going to be just fine.

What a joke.

The light had spilled into the room slowly at first. Then all together, like some arrival of death and greed, of temptations and sin. Because the light here sure as hell wasn't a happy one, not like back in Phoenix.

I decided that Forks suited me better, anyway. Darkness blends in the pure black, even better than it does grey. I deserved the damp grey light and the green air as it filtered onto my window. I found myself at ease – everything was familiar. 

Charlie's already left. He tiptoed into my room this morning sometime around four to check on me. I scared – and I quote from Charlie – 'the ever loving flying monkey shit out of him', when he saw me staring blankly up at the cracked ceiling. I think it scared him even more when I just turned my head to stare at him in silence.

"Have you even slept, Bell?"

"What do you think, Dad?"

He just leaned forward to kiss my forehead, and walked out the door saying something about how he loves me, and he'll be back before eight tonight.

My ride to school wasn't a concern, back when I lived here before, Charlie had bought me a black Ducati 1098 S. He told me that it was mine, his only condition, however, was that I had to wear a leather jacket and a helmet. I was ecstatic, even at seven years old, about the shiny new bike that Charlie had gotten me. I remember having dreams about riding it into the sunset with my longer, shiny hair, and a Batman mask covering my face. I was seven, okay?

An odd synchronizing sounds off mismatched bells rang through the house. I had learned yesterday by accident that the doorbell sounded like frogs croaking from tubas. _Who the hell? _Seriously, it was damn near six O'clock in the damned morning. What person in their right mind is up at this unholy hour?

I huffed in irritation, but pulled myself out of my incredibly warm and comfortable covers, and walked downstairs. And I only stubbed my toe once!

"Yeah?" I asked, my voice hiding thinly veiled disdain, as I yanked open the door. On the other side of the door I'd wished I'd never pulled open, was a small girl. She had a wild mop of an inky black, long pixie hair cut that reached (by estimation) to the ends of her ears, it crazily contrasted her extremely pale skin. Her wide, stormy grey eyes held nothing but innocence, excitement, and trust. It was in that moment that I realized two things, one: This girl is seriously, seriously beautiful, two: I was wearing nothing but a grey tank top and black boy short underwear. Dammit.

Determined to not fall behind, I continued forward. "Look, kid. I'm not sure what shit spiel Charlie told you about him being allowed to eat Girl Scout cookies – but he's not, okay? Tell him his daughter told him so, if he calls you. We refund our purchase." And with that I took a step back to close the door, but, quicker than lightning, she moved forward and placed a pale arm on the door.

"Bella, please, I'm not a Girl Scout. And I'm certainly not a kid, either." She looked at me, pleading for… something. I blinked. _Wow. _Her voice was something else, something unworldly. It sounded like she was singing, but at the same time it reminded me of shimmering bells. Frustrated at being caught off guard, I trilled another insult in her face.

"Fuck! You're a stalker, too?" I screamed out, lifting my head up for maximum effect. She just sighed with a breathy laugh.

"No," she smiled amusedly, "I'm not a stalker. My name is Alice Cullen, my Father is friends with yours, Dr. Carlisle Cullen? Maybe Charlie's mentioned him and my family?" She tilted her head and stepped forward onto the porch a little more.

"Uh—"

"Look, Bella." She wringed her hand in front of her and ducked her head with a sheepish grin. "I know it's early; I just got excited to see you. Charlie's been going on and on about what a wonderful girl you are. I just couldn't want longer to meet you. My siblings did try to stop me; you see, originally they were going to come with me and—"

"Okay!" I cried loudly, cutting off her rambling. "Well, I'm getting cold, so you must be too, come inside and I'll make you, I don't know… coffee or something." I spun around, leaving the door open for her to follow, and walked to the kitchen.

After flinging a look over my shoulder to confirm that the door was closed and she had followed behind me, I said, "what'll it be, Pixie Stix? Hot chocolate, coffee, apple cider, water? Damn, girl. You were all talks a minute ago, what happened?"

"Bella, you have fangs."

The statement was so odd, so random, and it took me completely by surprise. "I beg your pardon?" I spun around in the kitchen to face her. She was sitting at the counter on the swirly stool that I'd always spun myself on when I was younger.

"Yeah, you have short fangs. Anyway. Aren't you going to change?" She flicked her fingers away, like she was trying to physically flick off a verbal subject.

I grinned salaciously. "Why? Does me being scantily clad bother you?" She didn't blush. No, instead she smiled back and leaned closer to me. She tilted her head so that her lips brushed my ear, and whispered.

"No, in fact I rather like it." I shivered and pulled away.

I felt a little dizzy as I said, "We aim to please." She leaned back and smirked. "Anyway, tell me about yourself. My dear, dear, creepy-not-so-stalker-or-so-she-says." She rolled her eyes and huffed.

"Well," Alice began, "My parents put me up for adoption at age three." I frowned. Who would ever want to give her up? "Uh, Carlisle and Esme adopted me a week after I was put up. The adopted Jasper after me, he's my boyfriend, you'll meet him later, super nice. Anyways, I have a sister, Rosalie and two other brothers, Emmett and Edward. They were all adopted, too." She paused, placing a finger on her mouth. "That's all I can think of for now. Sorry." Alice added as an afterthought.

"No problem." I glanced towards the mirror that hung on the wall in the dining room. "How can you even stand looking at me? I look like a bag of smashed assholes." I tell her, smiling softly when she lets out a bark of laughter.

"And do tell, Bella dearest. What does a bag of smashed assholes look like?" She asked between gasps.

"My face." I stretched and said, "I'll go get dressed now."

I haven't really thought about clothes before. However, this morning, I decided to look at my choices instead of just grabbing something without looking and tugging them on.

Eventually, after maybe a minute or so, I chose dark jeans and a black V-neck long sleeve shirt. I was going to wear my Batman hoodie over it. It was simple enough for small town Forks, Washington. I rolled my eyes. Since when do I suddenly care about my dammed clothes? Clothes have one purpose; warmth. They're meant to keep you warm. I mean seriously, who the hell has time for this stuff? All we have to do—

"Hey, Bella?" A knock on my door sounded out.

"Yeah, Alice?"

"Well, we'd better get going… school starts at eight." I looked at the clock, it was seven thirty now.

"Alrighty," I called to Alice. "Did you get anything to eat, though?" I did offer her a beverage, I didn't actually _get _it for her though, in typical Bella fashion. I didn't want the poor girl, who had put up with all of my shit, to starve.

"Yeah, I ate before I came here." Alice assured me.

"Cool, cool." I frowned, "Did you want to come in, or continue our mind-blowingly eloquent conversation through a door?"

She giggled, but didn't open up the door. "Why, Bella! I'm flattered."

"Seriously, Alice? No, I'm not going to jump you. Don't come in if you don't want to, I guess." My specialty was the guilt trip voice – I used to viciously, too.

It worked. "Aw! Bella, don't be like that! I just don't know if you have clothes on."

"Nah, who needs clothes when you already have your birthday suit?"

"_Please_," Alice stressed, "please, don't say 'birthday suit' _ever_, ever, again." But she turned the doorknob anyway.

"Birthday suit." I cheeked back, and watched as her eyes scanned my room with awe and wonder.

"Sweet room." Alice flashed her freaking, pearly white teeth over to me. I flashed my as equally white, but albeit way sharper, teeth out at her. Chuckling in glee as she shivered.

I rolled my shoulders back, making sure that my wings behaved and stayed hidden under my skin. I also casually checked for indestructible claws from between my knuckles. There were none. "Glad you like it. Do you have a ride?"

"Yep." She chirped, fingering a poem on the wall.

_Some say the world will end in fire,_

_Some say in ice._

_From what I've tasted of desire,_

_I hold with those who favor fire._

_But if I had to perish twice,_

_I think I know enough of hate_

_To know that for destruction ice_

_Is also great_

_And would suffice. – Robert Frost._

"What do you think?" I ask, momentarily transfixed by the poem.

"About what?"

"The poem, what's your preference?" I ask again, touching my freezing cold skin – too cold to be human. "I like fire."

"I don't know." She placed a dainty finger on her lips. "I think heat is kind of suffocating, it makes my stomach sick. Besides, ice is much cooler – pun intended." Alice winked a feathery eyelash at me. Then she calmed down – an odd somber taking place of the cheery one "Who wrote these? They're beautiful."

I turned around so she couldn't see my face. So she couldn't see the flinch and the tears well up. "Oh, you know. Me and mom." I wondered if she knew. If Dad had told any of them. Because even if Dad told one, the whole town would know.

"_Bella_." She whispered. And it was like she knew, it was like she _knew_.

"So, when did you and your family move up here?" I turned around, face cleared of any emotion – pretending I didn't see her flinch as if somebody slapped her physically, at the monotone of my voice. "I was here until I was seven – I would have seen you then."

"Nice subject change." She snorted, looking to the window to run her hands through her already artfully sexy bed head. "Uh – two years ago, from Ithaca, New York." She turned back to me, probably already anticipating my comment.

"City girl then, huh? What's a young'un like you doing out in the fishing, hunting territory?" I made extra sure to drop my voice into a country slur.

"Ha," she laughed. "You sound like a female version of my boyfriend." I have the urge to roll my eyes, maybe. Or throw something. She's said it before – must she keep saying it? I hate it when people remind me of things. "But," Alice continued, watching the quirk of my eyebrow with a newfound interest. "Esme wanted to move somewhere small, you know? Even if Ithaca was okay, the city was too much for her, I think. In any event, she wasn't happy. Carlisle found a job here at the hospital and we hiked up and moved out."

"I could have guessed you were from the city." I shrugged, turning around to go outside.

"Oh, yeah?" She asks, following me down into the breezeway. "How come?"

"Your clothes."

She snaps her fingers behind me, stopping to grab her keys on the counter while I grab mine form our kitchen bowl. "We totes need to go shopping soon, I hate your wardrobe."

"No." I snap. "I like my clothes. And if you keep using the damned 'cool language' I will be forced to unfriend you. Got it, Pixie?"

"Oh, thank the goodness," Alice breathed a sigh of relief, "I'm so glad that you hate that as much as me."

"Whatever." I paused outdoors, blinking against the non-existent sun. "Did you want to ride with me?"

"Wait, friends?"

"No. We aren't friends. I didn't have a suitable threat for you."

"But you just offered me a ride."

"I'm nothing if not polite." I turned to her. "Yes or no?"

She huffed spinning around on the sidewalk to stomp towards her car – a yellow Porsche – and stuck her tongue out at me.

"What are you, five?" I asked incredulous, standing in the drizzling rain with a hand reaching toward a dusty helmet underneath a forgotten tarp. Underneath the tarp was my bike. My beautiful, beautiful bike.

"Four!" She huffed at me. I rolled my eyes, _women_. "And no! If you think that I'm going to get on that-that death machine, then you've got another thing coming, honey." We stared at each other for a minute. I didn't understand, was she upset about me saying that we weren't friends? Or was it 'that time of the month?'

"Alice, I didn't mean to upset you." Her eyes softened, mostly. "We don't know each other very well. Do you think it's fair that we call ourselves friends when we hardly know anything about each other? Plus, its creepy – almost bordering sociopathic, to deem us friends."

"Damn," she flicked her perfect hair back, "you sure as hell know how to set an apology."

"Learned from the best." I shot back, slightly acerbic. "I mean, to be human is to err, so I might as well be prepared for it." I turned away from her suddenly _too_ probing gaze to flick the blue tarp off of my motorcycle. And there, in all of its orgasm inducing glory, stood my still shiny motorbike. I had to bite my lip to stop the whimper from escaping my mouth. "You go ahead." Wow, is that my voice? Why is it all breathy? "I can find my way."

I just heard a laugh and a purr of an engine. The smell of tire assaulted my in-human senses. Man, she really know how to burn rubber. I frowned as it occurred to me that she really hadn't said she accepted my half- assed apology. But at the same time, I felt like she did accept it. Like we both didn't even need words – we just _knew_.

And that scared me, because I started to smile.

Genuinely smile.

And that wasn't good.

An escaped mutant, spy, assassin, and a whole lot of fucked up, weren't supposed to feel.

Because really, the whole 'to be human is to err' phrase isn't the whole truth. The darker version is 'to feel is to destroy'.

I would know, after all.

* * *

**So, here it is! Tell me if I should continue or not. I don't want to force you guys into seeing a God-awful story update in the Twilight fanfiction page. **


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